Jacket
Appearance Jacket's most striking appearance is his Letterman jacket, which he is almost always wearing. Other than that he wears many different shirts and usually wears close-fit denim jeans. Underneath his mask he appears to have Blond-red hair, and green eyes with a clean-shaven face. Equipment & Abilities Aside from Jacket being able to wear the most Masks out of any character in the series, Jacket has two unique combat abilities shared by no other player characters: * If the player attempts to execute a standing mobster, Jacket will perform a standing execution where he will pull out the mobster's throat with his bare hands, killing them. This ability is also present in the sequel's Level Editor. * Jacket can take a knocked down mobster as a human shield when armed with certain firearms. Jacket can kill the mobster at any time. The mobster will also die if he (the mobster) takes too much damage from bullets. The Level Editor removes this ability. In the first game, Jacket also swings melee weapons faster than any character, executes enemies with melee weapons the fastest, and has a much higher rate of fire with firearms. The sequel's Level Editor slows his movements down to the default character speed of that game, except when wearing the Graham Mask or Brandon Mask. Personality There are numerous cues to what kind of personality Jacket has, one being the constantly-changing conditions in his apartment. * The Animal room coma dreams suggest Jacket has a vague guilt that his passive, unobservant approach to life has limited his perspective, which he attempts (in vain) to fix in Assault by stealing the police's evidence file on the phone messages. * The apartment shows signs of a break up at the start of the game, and Hotline Miami 2 explicitly gives him a break up in the outro to Casualties. * Hotline Miami 2's Hawaii levels characterize Jacket as being extremely laid back as well as a habitual smoker. * Jacket relaxes after jobs by eating junk food and pizza, watching movies, and visiting bars, indicating that he highly values immediate gratification wherever he can get it to relieve stress. * He's a procrastinator and has trouble maintaining personal relationships, demonstrated by failing to send Beard the Hawaii photo and failing to hold onto a girlfriend. This further indicates he heavily values immediate gratification. * The amount of pizza boxes in his apartment decreases as his relationship with Girlfriend progresses, indicating he relies less on junk food and more on their relationship for stability in the later parts of the game. This reliance on the support of girlfriends is shown again in the outro to Hotline Miami 2's Casualties, where Beard consoles him on a break up. * He plays video games, as there is a Nintendo Entertainment System in his bedroom. He puts it up well into his relationship with Girlfriend, indicating it occupied him between relationships. * Jacket seems to view the Miami skyline seen from his car as a kind of reward for completing jobs, suggesting an aesthetic appreciation for the city that's heightened with adrenaline. The transitions after his visits to Beard-cashiered locations are more relaxed, and take a slower, more relaxed car view in between towering buildings, and feel considerably more aimless. His drowsy, slow post-Trauma transition is a parody of the full Miami skyline, blearily glimpsed and blindingly gold. * For a period of a few weeks he keeps newspapers of his jobs, either as clues or trophies. He begins to position them away from Girlfriend as the game progresses, and eventually stops collecting them altogether. * He seems to carry a huge amount of regret for his actions at Phone Hom, where he fought Biker (and cut off any chance of himself helping out on the investigation), and failed to kill Biker (leading directly to Richter being called to kill Jacket and indirectly to Girlfriend's death). After "Neighbors," bartender Beard says Jacket looks awful, and the subsequent Animal Room visit features Jacket drenched in blood. * It's likely that beast of burden Don Juan represents Jacket's distracting himself with base pleasures and girlfriends, piercing glare'd Rasmus represents the mutual hostility between Jacket and Russians and fear of harsh observations and judgments from people he doesn't know, and Richard represents Jacket's memories of and connection to the events of the first game and a call to wake up from his coma. * He likes to wear printed T-shirts. * He drives a Acado GT, indicating a taste for higher-end sports cars. * He owns a varsity jacket, leading some players to call him "Jacket." The "B" on the jacket most likely represents the name of his hometown or school, as it is common for the letter on letterman jackets to be the first letter of the name of the school. * Varsity Jackets are rewarded for high school or college students for meeting personal participation's such as athletics, academics or activities. Meaning that Jacket was possibly an athlete at his school. * He's consistently seen keeping himself occupied by playing with a small green ball in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, indicating a fixation on games as a stress reliever and a disinterest in and resignation to the events around him. * He's assumed to be ambidextrous, as evident by how he holds certain weapons and often switches between being left handed and right handed. * He doesn't have a toilet in his apartment. ** According to Dennis Wedin in IGN Live, they forgot to put it in there. * He vomits after killing the tutorial Bum in Metro, possibly because the Bum is a fellow veteran. He shows no remorse in killing Russian-affiliated civilians or police officers, suggesting a dislike of both Russians and Miami's law enforcement. ** This could be Jacket simply having it sink in that he's just killed roughly a dozen people, as at that point he'd been established as a relatively normal person and it might not have been planned yet for him to have had a military career. Alternatively, it could be Jacket having a negative reaction to returning a violent way of life, or to having killed a "normal" person as opposed to a soldier or mobster. * He seems to have something like an aimless death wish after coming out of his coma, and seems generally unafraid to die. * Jacket has blond hair and his face can be briefly seen if he dies. Jacket's appearance pays homage to the Nicholas Winding Refn film Drive as the character Driver (played by Ryan Gosling) has blonde hair and a similar style of dress, particularly in that each character wears a distinctive jacket. This is further implied by the fact that Winding Refn is thanked in the credits. ** The latter part of Jacket's chapters in Hotline Miami take a revenge arc that seems influenced by the plot of Drive as well, as does the use of masks, as Driver wears a mask during one of his assassinations. * The varsity jacket he wears implies he doesn't buy new clothes often and is nostalgic for his past. * According to Dennis Wedin in a reddit AMA, Jacket is not actually mute. * He is a smoker as he is shown smoking a cigarette before the closing credits after Showdown, and in his appearances in Ambush, and Casualties. ** He may be a heavy smoker. This is shown in the Ambush level where he is smoking beside the tent, surrounded by several dozen cigarette butts. * His exact age is unknown, although it is noticeable he might be on his late 20s/early 30s. * On various artwork pieces his jacket is shown to be brown, however in-game it is yellow due to the off-color neon art style of the game. * Jacket may have golfing experience as seen by his perfect swing posture while executing an enemy using the golf club. Pre-Clash Biography Phone Calls The game opens with an extended nightmare sequence with Jacket in a pig mask being trained by a Bum wearing a veteran's jacket. He kills three unarmed Russian mobsters when the surreal setting changes to a dimly lit bathroom. Jacket exits and is confronted by a filthy living room featuring a coffee table with a vinyl record player on it, and three comfy chairs each with their own lighting and animal-masked occupant. The blue-lit woman in a horse mask, Don Juan, cordially greets Jacket, realizes he doesn't know who he is, and comments that maybe he should leave it that way as he's done some terrible things. The red-lit man in mobster garb and a piercing glare owl mask, Rasmus, says he doesn't know Jacket and treats him with hostility. The sickly-yellow lit man in Jacket's clothes and a rooster mask, Richard, tells Jacket that he knows him, and that they met on April 3rd (the date of both Jacket's first masked job, and of San Francisco). Richard sees that Jacket is starting to remember his life, and the setting becomes Jacket's apartment. April 1989 Jacket wakes up on April 3rd in his dirty and notably two-bed apartment. He receives a call from Tim's Bakery telling him a package of ingredients has been sent to him. The package contains the Richard rooster mask and instructions to pick up a package at a metro and deliver it to a dumpster at "point F-32." Jacket dons the mask and does so, killing several Russian mafia enforcers on the scene, but at F-32 he is confronted by the tutorial bum in veteran jacket, who attacks him for interfering with the dumpster and is promptly killed. This provokes Jacket to vomit at the scene. Jacket drives to a local convenience store where Beard is the cashier. Beard greets him and says he hasn't seen him in a long time and was worried about him. He comments that the last time they talked Jacket told him about his girlfriend dumping him. He quickly switches the topic and gives Jacket a midnight snack "on the house." On April 8th, Jacket's kitchen table features several 50 Blessings newsletters from a patriotic organization he's subscribed to. He gets a call from "Linda" to discipline naughty kids. He arrives at the given address to find it's a Russian mobster hangout and kills them. He proceeds to a local pizzeria, where Beard is the cashier. Beard gives Jacket his desired pizza before Jacket orders, telling him it's "on the house." On April 13th, Jacket's apartment contains several newspaper clippings of his April 8th job as mementos or trophies. "Thomas" at the methadone clinic leaves him a message to swing on by. Jacket again arrives to find a den of Russian mobsters, this time seeing the tied up corpse of a walrus-masked killer, Earl. He visits a local VHS store, where Beard is the cashier. He raves about the recent killings, saying that a bunch of Ruskies is no loss if you ask him, and that it all sounds like a cool slasher flick. He gives Jacket a movie, again "on the house." He encourages Jacket to enjoy himself. On April 25th, Jacket's apartment is cluttered with empty pizza boxes and more news clippings. Hotline Miami's dating service worker "Kate" tells Jacket they've set up a date for him. He arrives at the address to find it's an expensive villa guarded by several Russian mobsters and many security cameras. After dispatching them, the owner, a movie producer wearing a bullet proof vest, attacks Jacket, who retaliates by gouging his eyes out. In the media room Jacket finds a drugged Girl surrounded by cameras who begs him to kill her. He instead takes her to his car. Jacket heads to a bar, where Beard comments that he looks sick. He makes him a custom drink for free. Questions Jacket returns to the dirtied animal living room, now noticeably more littered with broken things. Don Juan comments that Jacket's been busy. She says that a picture is starting to form and that she doesn't like the way it looks; Rasmus berates Jacket's return and says he's not a nice person and that he makes him sick; Richard comments that Jacket still doesn't understand his connection to Richard and asks four questions: 1) Do you like hurting other people? 2) Who is leaving messages on your answering machine? 3) Where are you right now? 4) Why are we having this conversation? At this stage, Jacket can't remember the answers to any of these questions, but respectively: 1) To a degree, yes he does as it's cathartic; 2) 50 Blessings (Jacket never fully learns this, blaming the Russian Mafia); 3) A local Miami hospital; and 4) To get Jacket to wake up. May 1989 On May 5th, Jacket's apartment has more newspaper clippings revealing that he was recorded in the movie producer's villa. The Girl is on his couch next to a vomit bucket. "Blake" from an electrician service calls about fixing a power outage. Jacket arrives to find a large mafia hangout, where he finds and detonates the body of another masked killer, this one in a tiger mask which is damaged and bloodied by the explosion. He visits Beard's convenience store, the inside of which is empty, and the outside of which features a group of Russian mobsters beating a masked killer to death. Beard comments that the streets are no longer safe and that he was worried about Jacket. He again gives him a snack for free because Jacket's his friend and his money's "no good here." On May 11th, Jacket's newspaper clippings and empty pizza boxes have been moved out of the living room and into the kitchen (away from where Girlfriend sleeps), as has the vomit bucket. Girlfriend is in the bathroom, looking in the mirror. "Dave" from pest control sends Jacket to a large house full of Russian mobsters. After killing them, Jacket inspects a nearby manhole cover and finds the mutilated dying body of another masked killer, Jones. Jones tells him that he finally understands that it's all a dream and dies. Jacket visits Beard's pizzeria, and Beard comments that Jacket looks worried and that business has dried up, saying "maybe they've lost their taste for pizza... maybe it's time to close up shop after all." As always, Beard gives him his order for free. On May 13th, The Girl is taking a bath, and pizza crumbs are present on her sheets on the couch. Jacket has further tidied up, moving all his newspaper clippings save the most recent onto the spare bed. "Don" from the Hotel Blue calls Jacket to come in as a back up receptionist, because their other one "went home due to stomach problems" (alluding to Biker's refusal of the political mission because he didn't have the stomach for that much heat; Biker instead uses May 13th to investigate the phone calls in the level "Safe House"). On his way downstairs he meets a suspicious Janitor but continues to his car. The Hotel Blue is full of armed waiters, Russian mafia guards, and mafia-affiliated pro-Russian politicians, all of which Jacket kills, but spares yet another suspicious Janitor. Jacket visits Beard's customer-less VHS store, where Beard excitedly asks him if he's following the news of the killings, and says that a friend of his in the police force told him about a rumor that there's a full group of masked killers. Beard comments that it fascinates him, like something from a movie. He tells Jacket to take whatever he wants on the house, because "that's what friends are for." On May 23rd, all kitchen clutter and clippings has been either thrown away or moved onto Jacket's spare bed. The Girl sits upright on her couch. "Harry" from condo management tells Jacket about a huge mess he needs to clean up. He arrives at a series of several Russian occupied condos, which he quickly clears out. Before returning to his car, the phone of the top level condo rings, informing Jacket that a prank caller needs to be dealt with at the phone company. Jacket arrives at Phone Hom headquarters to find a motorcycle parked outside and all the employees inside dead. In the manager's office he confronts a Biker hacking the manager's computer, who tells him he's "dead meat" and attacks him with a meat cleaver. After a long fight and multiple hits with a golf club Jacket apparently defeats Biker prompting a "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING, I'M SO CLOSE" before he apparently destroys Biker's entire head with the golf club. Afterward, Jacket visits Beard's customer-less bar. Beard comments that Jacket doesn't look happy, and admits he feels pretty bad himself, "something in the air, like something terrible has happened tonight," and comments that he "hasn't felt this way since San Francisco". This foreshadows that Jacket's failure to actually kill Biker will have repercussions for him that will lead to loss of someone he cares about. Visitations A blood drenched Jacket emerges from the bathroom into an utterly trashed animal living room. Don Juan says Jacket looks ill and should see a doctor, get some rest, and relax. Rasmus says that if Jacket insists on returning he'll leave. Richard gives no answers, but tells Jacket this is their second to last meeting, and offers three predictions: 1) Someone you know is not who you think he is. 2) Something will soon be taken from you. 3) On July 21st you will wake up in a bigger house. At this stage, and for the rest of his life, Jacket believes Richter to be under orders from the Russian mafia. He later learns that Richter is a masked killer just like him, but he never fully realizes (but possibly suspects) that the masked killer movement actually isn't angled from within the mob itself. Late May, Early June 1989 On May 27th, Jacket's apartment is completely free of pizza boxes and newspaper clippings, and The Girl has moved to sleeping on his spare bed instead of the couch. "Pat" from the Club calls Jacket in as a spare DJ. Notably the phone call says beer "is on the house." Jacket arrives at the dance club to find the body of the masked killer Carl and several Russian mobsters, one of which has a cell phone. Jacket visits Beard's customer-less convenience store, which is now marked in the same manner as all other targeted locations. Beard says he has to tell Jacket something important, gesturing to the exploded-head corpse of Biker and saying "that did not happen" and that all of this "is not happening." He sees that Jacket doesn't believe him, and demonstrates as the screen turns to surreal static. The corpse of Biker is gone, but a blood stain remains, revealing that Jacket merely wounded Biker. A mysterious man, Richter, appears in the bathroom of the convenience store. Beard seems to "reset" and tells Jacket it's nice to see him, that friendly faces are "few and far between these days" and to help himself to whatever he wants. The surreal static intermittently continues as Jacket leaves. On May 31st, The Girl is nowhere to be seen. Jacket's kitchen table has a new cloth, his NES system is gone, and his TV has been moved from his bedroom into the living room. "Rick" from the real estate office calls Jacket about an apartment showing. Jacket arrives to find the apartment full of Russian mobsters packaging cocaine. Halfway through dispatching them, the place is raided by a SWAT team and Jacket is forced to flee the scene. Jacket visits Beard's pizzeria, which has a zombie Russian and zombie guard dog out front who are hostile to Jacket. Behind the counter is the corpse of Beard with the new cashier being the mysterious Richter, wiping Beard's blood off his jacket. Richter tells Jacket to hurry up as they're closing soon, and Jacket leaves. On June 3rd, The Girl is again nowhere to be seen, but pink and teal couch pillows are on Jacket's couch in the living room, as is a potted plant. "Thomas" from Downtown Relaxation Spa calls Jacket to come in as a back up receptionist, mentioning that another "employee" has "called in sick" (alluding to Jake's assassination in the spa). Jacket arrives at the spa and clears out the Russian mobsters in it, finding yet another masked killer corpse, Jake. Jacket visits Beard's VHS store, where again Beard's corpse is behind the counter, Richter toying with the mallet he apparently used to crush Beard's skull. Richter rudely asks what Jacket's looking at, and then seems to recognize Jacket and asks if he's seen him before. Jacket leaves. On June 8th, an untampered newspaper is open on Jacket's kitchen table, and a zombie bouncer is looking through his fridge. The two beds are now pushed together. Girlfriend is in the living room, watching TV. "Jim" from the office asks Jacket for his report, and hangs up the phone fourteen times. Jacket arrives at the office to see it full of Russian mobsters, which he dispatches largely with a silenced pistol. As he heads out of the lobby a van crashes through the entrance and disgorges several Russian mobsters and bouncers while a teal-haired Richter lookalike throws Molotov cocktails at Jacket. The surreal dream static returns as Jacket slowly mutilates and sets fire to the Richter lookalike. Jacket goes to Beard's bar to find a blood trail leading from the cashier, Richter, to the back room. Richter tells Jacket "VIPs only tonight, I think you'd better leave." In lieu of customers Russian mobster zombies are being served, implying that Jacket associates Richter as a servant of Russians. Connections Jacket arrives back home from his June 8th job to find it tagged for a hit, and sees The Girl's corpse riddled with gunshot wounds in the bathroom. He enters the living room where Richter is watching TV with a silenced submachine gun resting on his lap. For the first time, he's wearing an animal mask, revealing him to be a masked killer just like Jacket. Richter says "Well, let's get the over with then..." and shoots Jacket in the face. The dream static returns as Jacket wakes up in his own apartment and walks over to his body. Richter has been replaced on the couch by Richard. Don Juan and Rasmus have gone and Jacket is left alone with Richard. Richard tells Jacket none of this will have a happy ending, that what he does upon waking up will have no consequences, that Jacket will never see the full picture and it's his own fault. He failed to kill the Biker and he failed to help Biker and Richter investigate the phone calls and now he's lost The Girl to what could've been an ally. Jacket exits the apartment and his outfit changes into a hospital gown and head bandages, he opens the door to the apartment across the hall to find himself in a hospital bed, his head then explodes like Biker's. The dream static erases his headless body. July 21st and July 23rd At some point during his coma, Jacket drowsily overhears a conversation between a nurse and a cop, informing him that he's recently out of surgery, The Girl's dead, and Richter's in the local precinct. The cop mentions Jacket is the prime suspect in a major case, and that Richter isn't talking. On July 21st, Jacket wakes up in his hospital room. He shimmies out the window and dodges several nurses and guards to escape the hospital. He drowsily returns home, finding it a gang-trashed former crime scene. There seems to be blood near the fridge, implying Jacket walked over there or was dragged by Richter after being shot in the head, potentially explaining the June 8th fridge zombie in his dreams. Moving to the laundry basket in the bathroom, Jacket gets another burst of dream static before donning his clothes, implying he fell asleep and some time has passed, making it either July 22nd or July 23rd as he heads downstairs. Jacket proceeds to his trashed DeLorean and drives it to the local precinct, where he proceeds to kill around thirty cops to get to Richter and the evidence room. Richter confirms that he takes orders from the same mysterious phone messages as Jacket, prompting Jacket to spare him and turn to the police file on the case for clues. The police have traced some of the calls to a club of suspected Russian mafia ties (deemed the Golden Truck Stop in the sequel), but have insufficient evidence for a warrant. On July 23rd, Jacket again heads out of his apartment and takes his Acado GT to the Golden Truck Stop. The place is lavishly decorated with golden floors and monster trucks and of course guarded by several Russian mobsters. A Russian mafia associate in the main office has opened the safe for Jacket and begs him not to kill him. He tells Jacket his boss isn't here today, and gives Jacket his address. He moves toward the desk with an open drawer with a magnum in it, but stumbles and falls over well out of reach of it. Regardless, Jacket bashes his head in for a solid minute and proceeds to the Russian kingpin's house. Now at what he assumes is the source of the calls, Jacket kills his way through the Russian Father's home. In the main room, the Russian Father comments that Jacket is the asshole who's been killing his men, but commends Jacket for his senseless bloodlust and looks forward to seeing his face after killing him. Jacket beats the Father's attack panthers and ninja body guard to death with nearby trophies, and uses the dead ninja's throwing knives to maim the Father from a distance. The Father, realizing he is defeated, denies Jacket catharsis by killing himself. A dejected Jacket then hears the phone on the Father's desk ring. Jacket answers, and the elderly Grandfatherasks what the noise down there is. When there's no reply, the Grandfather says "Goddamn phones! I hate these things!" Jacket takes the Father's revolver and heads upstairs, following the ever more tenuous idea that the phone-hating voice is behind the calls, where he finds a wheelchair-bound and unarmed Grandfather, who briefly wonders who Jacket is before deciding it doesn't matter. He expresses regret for all the wrongs he's committed and is resigned to his fate. "Nothing really seems to matter anymore, does it?" he asks before Jacket shoots him in the face, killing him. Stepping outside onto the balcony, Jacket throws off his mask and removes from his pocket the picture alluded to in the animal room in his coma dream. He lights a cigarette and throws it to the wind as the credits roll. Answers Answers rewinds to the events between May 13th and May 24th, this time from Biker's perspective. Biker backs out of the May 13th political job assigned to him, likely due to the associated political heat (or due to the fact that Clean Hit actually can't be completed with Biker's default layout of meat cleaver and 3 darts), becoming frustrated and bored. He quickly finds that the nationalistic 50 Blessings newsletter that both he and Jacket are subscribed to is using Phone Hom to screen calls and frame The Golden Truck Stop, making Jacket's post-coma actions effectively meaningless (as Jacket slightly understood). Biker also has a warped view of the events at Phone Hom on May 23rd, and imagines giving Jacket a fair chance to leave ("Get out of here if you don't want to die," as opposed to simply "You're dead meat."), and also imagines killing Jacket easily and completely destroying his head (consistently shown previously to represent a failure in assassinating a 50B agent). On May 24th he meets the Janitors and confronts them about their goals, but when he finds out the political nature of their operation and its goal to end the Russo-American Coalition, he flees Miami, saying they've "wasted enough of his time," leaving the operation intact to call Jacket again on May 27th. Following the events of Jacket's massacre, a slasher film is inspired by the story, but instead features an actor named Martin Brown as a cold-blooded serial killer called the "Pig Butcher". The levels are set up as scenes for the film Midnight Animal, in which the Pig Butcher "kills his victims" while under the orders of a pink phone that's implied by the movie to not exist, showing that society views Jacket and his claims as completely nuts. Jacket's "adventures" have also inspired a group of new protagonists called The Fans, who share similar anti-Russian sentiment and try to recreate his actions. In absence of Russians, they make do patrolling the streets for criminals and using loose gang connections to raid gang controlled locations. In Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, it is revealed that Jacket is sent to Jail for his crimes. He is nearly always seen playing with a small green ball to keep himself occupied. He is first referred to in an October 25th, 1991 newspaper on his abnormally calm temperatment during his trial. On November 5th, he's shown at his trial where his lawyer reveals Jacket believed he was acting on orders from the Russian mafia in 1989. A flashback to June 20th, 1990 shows Jacket speaking to an attorney while Richter is threatened by the Janitors nearby. It is eventually revealed that, prior to the events of the first game, Jacket was fighting a war against Soviet troops in Hawaii alongside Beard in the US Special Forces, part of an elite squad consisting of him, Beard, Barnes, and Daniels, led by a US Army Colonel. The group uses code names and metaphors to convey tactical information, much like the 50 Blessings calls in 1989. Jacket is consistently portrayed in Hawaii as being extremely laid back as well as a habitual smoker (in the tiki bar intro to Ambush, he's notably shares his blonde hair and disinterested smoking animation with a nearby Alex). He seems prone to base pleasures like sunbathing as opposed to actual human interaction, but the intro to Ambush establishes a friendship with Beard, and they take a commemorative Polaroid together for Evan. He's also regularly seen immediately next to Barnes. During an assault on a Russian power plant, Jacket was severely injured in an elevator explosion that left Barnes slowly dying, leading Daniels to staying with his friend as the plant entered a meltdown. The bleeding out Jacket was carried out by Beard, who urgently radios for evac. As they wait, Beard hands Jacket the Polaroid, saying "No need to thank me, kid, it's on the house. You'd do the same for me, right?" On April 3rd, 1986 (exactly 3 years before the first game's first mission) he called Beard to discuss losing his girlfriend. Beard consoled him, and asked if Jacket had gotten around to sending him a copy of the Polaroid yet, which he hadn't. The conversation is cut short as Beard investigates a disturbance outside the store - revealed to be an impending nuclear detonation. As Miami is nuked, the final shot of the game is Jacket in his sparse jail cell, playing with his ball as he's obliterated. Like all characters at the instant of nuking, this strongly resembles his entire approach to life: alone, focusing in on "games" and low-level tasks, ignoring the larger scale of things. This parallels both Ryan Gosling's Drive''character, who realizes he's incapable of maintaining a stable relationship because of his history. In the ''Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Level Editor, sprites released in the 1.04 patch reveal that his appearance has changed drastically from the first game, but still maintains the same base appearance. His Varsity Jacket is now partially opened (revealing a white shirt instead of the Teal in Payday 2/Hotline Miami Artwork) the off neon style is no longer seen on him either, revealing a pair of dark blue skinny jeans instead of the light blue denim of the first game, and a dark yellow-brown version of his varisity jacket, he still however has the same hair style, and dark blue and white sneakers. Notable Actions Relationships Trivia * It is possible that Jacket's real name is "Richard," since it is the first mask received in the game (mailed to him personally by 50 Blessings), and it grants no special abilities. However, Jacket's notably introduced in the tutorial wearing an Aubrey pig mask. * On the Dennaton Games website there is a picture of Jacket with the name "Fritz" embroidered onto his jacket. This could also be his last name if the above is true. It could just be the name on the jacket, as there is no indication at all that the jacket originally belonged to him. * Jacket is the only playable character who doesn't get a single line of official dialogue in the games. He does talk over the phone to Beard in the outro to Casualties, but the game only expresses this by Beard regularly pausing. * Canonically (e.g. in-game, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, official artwork) Jacket owns the Tony Mask, the Richard Mask, and the Aubrey Mask, and has used the Fireaxe, Baseball Bat, Pistol, Throwing Knives, Shotgun and/or Machine Gun, Double Barrel and Trophy. * Like Biker, Jacket is easily interpretable as a meta self insert of the player: taking the game's events fairly passively and silently going through the motions, putting much more effort into exploring a variety of violence implementation and mission completion rather than exploring the reasons behind what he's doing. Jacket is a gamer himself and regularly escapes into recreational activities to wind down from what he's just done, and these are associated with the player's high score screen. * Jacket has either two or three ex-girlfriends. He's being consoled on a break up by Beard in 1986, he has a stripped twin sized bed in his apartment in early 1989, and his relationship with his girlfriend is explicitly followed. The pairing of him next to Rachael Ward in Apocalypse and her role in Midnight Animal as his 1989 girlfriend could place Ward as his early 1989 ex. The Ambush intro in 1985 seems to imply a fling between Jacket and Alex, both being the only ones standing away from the bar smoking and ready to leave, the bar itself having a unisex bathroom. This is the only time Alex is shown smoking a cigarette, an animation otherwise restricted to Jacket. Alex also has an explicit interest in recreational marijuana, which fits with Jacket's psychedelic apartment theme "Deep Cover." * Jacket is referenced several times in the heist game Payday 2. He is shown at the end of the Hotline Miami DLC trailer, beating an unnamed Russian mobster with a baseball bat, several animal masks can be purchased for the Payday 2 heisters, and a DMC DeLorean is the getaway vehicle in the Hotline Miami heist on day 1. As of the Hotline Miami 2 Update, Jacket is now a playable character. He never directly speaks, instead playing pre-recorded messages from a tape player to communicate with teammates, though he can be heard panting heavily if he sprints for too long. Jacket comes equipped with a customized Cobray M-11/9 machine pistol named "Jacket's Piece" and a claw hammer named "Carpenter's Delight". His associated Perk Deck is called "The Sociopath", for obvious reasons; the perks "No Talk", "Tension", "Clean Hit", "Overdose", and "Showdown" in his deck are named after Hotline Miami levels. Because the Payday and Hotline Miami universes seem to be mutually incompatible, Jacket's appearance is most likely non-canon, though given the existence of The Fans, it is also possible that the Jacket seen in Payday is a copycat pretending to be the real Jacket. * Jacket's signature varsity jacket is based on Axel Foley's outfit. * Jacket resembles Jasper Byrne, one of the music artists for the game. ** In Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, his suit sprite reuses Jasper's sprite from the first game. * While in the game Jacket collects several masks, only Richard, Tony, and Aubrey are shown as evidence in his trial in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. * Jacket easily has the largest body count out of any playable character in the series, in front of The Son and Richter. * Jacket is the very last character shown to die in the entire series. * There are several similarities between Corey and Jacket, most notably both being messy, being silent and wearing a jacket, she was also is referred to as the "female version of Jacket" in the Artbook. Category:AetheticMonkey